No effort to delay ABG Shipyard investigation by lenders, says SBI

On Friday, CBI booked the firm, its former CMD and others for allegedly cheating a consortium of banks for over Rs 22,842 crore, touted as the biggest fraud in Indian banking history

With controversy breaking out over delay in filing the first information report (FIR) by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against ABG Shipyard, State Bank of India (SBI) has clarified that banks were not responsible for the delay.

The loans to the troubled shipbuilder were extended by over a consortium of two dozen lenders, led by ICICI Bank which turned non-performing in November 2013, following which the loans were restructured under Corporate Debt Restructuring (CDR) scheme in 2014. “However, as the shipping industry was going through a downturn, one of the worst ever seen, the operations of the company could not